-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 When building a virtual environment, I'd like to be able to store global distutils configuration options which are custom to that environment. However, both setuptools and distutils expect to read / write that file relative to the directory of 'distutils.__file__', which is located in the *source* environment under virtualenv 0.8.4:: $ ~/projects/source/bin/virtualenv /tmp/virtual New python executable in /tmp/virtual/bin/python Installing setuptools.............done. [/tmp] $ cd /tmp/virtual/ [/tmp/virtual] $ bin/python -c "import distutils; print distutils.__file__" /home/tseaver/projects/source/lib/python2.4/distutils/__init__.pyc The simplest way I can think of to make 'distutils.__file__' local to the virtual environment is to make an empty local 'distutils' package, which pulls in the source version by hacking '__path__'. However, because the virtual environment forces the 'real_prefix' library so high in the path, I also need to hack my own library in higher (in 'sitecustomize.py'):: [/tmp/virtual] $ patch -p1 < ../local_distutils.patch patching file lib/python2.4/distutils/__init__.py patching file lib/python2.4/sitecustomize.py [/tmp/virtual] $ bin/python -c "import distutils; print distutils.__file__" /tmp/virtual/lib/python2.4/distutils/__init__.py [/tmp/virtual] Probably it would make more sense to fix the path in the SITE_PY inside virtualenv's support-files; virtualenv could then just make the near-empty local 'distutils' package with the correct '__path__'. I have attached the patch I used to fix up the local environment ('local_distutils.patch' in the example above). Tres. - -- =================================================================== Tres Seaver +1 540-429-0999 tseaver@palladion.com Palladion Software "Excellence by Design" http://palladion.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFG+rc5+gerLs4ltQ4RAtySAKCR2RYNq/zJUnEAU/eNz5vsyYZ3ZgCeJ7lB EO0xuEmqiLKZ86ZaK3CqfeU= =r8N9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----